Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  “’Ware wire!” he called over his shoulder, to the groom, alone following. They cantered down field, to a gate at the far corner. Beyond, he galloped down a sloping grassy field to catch up with Jack.

  From the rise he saw hounds and pink coats a quarter of a mile away, running strongly; while above the meadow an aeroplane was circling.

  There was a brook at the bottom of the valley. The thrusters flew this, he saw, while others turned off to a crossing place for bullocks made of railway sleepers packed with earth, where the fox had run. He hesitated: indecision tore him: desperately he decided to follow the thrusters, who were now going hard over the meadow beyond.

  The aeroplane was now banking over his head. Looking up, he saw two faces. A hand waved. It was a Maurice Farman. It came down to about a hundred feet, and making a slight banking turn, headed diagonally over the meadow. He saw that hounds had also changed direction, having turned right handed; while in front the thrusters were holding back their horses. Now for it! He cantered in a semi-circle, then put Prince at the brook. Prince nearly fell at the far bank, but got up with plunging leaps, while he hung on somehow. Over anyway, water and black ooze on boots and breeches. Then seeing that the thrusters had stopped, he stopped too. A fox was running across their front two hundred yards away. Had it come back, or was it another fox? The aeroplane banked low over it. He saw the fox look up, then head towards the group of horsemen, then hesitate, before turning into a bed of rushes. Meanwhile hounds were running back, in a loop. When they came up the huntsman cheered them on. He saw, as the Farman turned over them again, the fox creeping out of a clump not fifty yards away. Cries of “Tally ho!” and yarring cries came from the group near him. He wished they could have given the fox a chance. A hound circling the clump saw it, and running round, met the fox head on. The fox stopped and looked about, then tried to run away. Its brush dragged with mud. The fox turned to meet the hound, which seized it and shook it, snarling, struggling with it while the rest of the pack came up. There was deep growling like a barrage heard some way off. Then it was over. The dismounted whips were crying to the hounds, cracking their lashes while the huntsman went among them, and bending down, lifted up the limp fox and carried it away, while the whippers-in kept hounds in a circle.

  The huntsman knelt to cut off head, brush, and paws. The aeroplane passed very low overhead and made a bumpy landing two hundred yards away. Out jumped two men in leather helmets and coats, and walking forward, were greeted by the master.

  “I hope we didn’t head the fox, Master,” Phillip heard one say. He was a captain with R.F.C. wings.

  “Not at all! Very sporting effort!”

  The head, or mask, was given to a lady; the brush to someone else; and a pad each to the flyers, who said they had come from Lincoln. Then the carcase, borne aloft by the huntsman, was flung to the pack, during which the Master blew his horn and everyone gave a sort of mad screaming cheer. Anyway, Phillip thought, the fox had taken many birds and rabbits, and now had copped it. He drank port from Jack’s parsnip-shaped crystal flask, taken from a leather container strapped to his saddle, and ate a pork sandwich. After which they set off to draw another covert. When he tried to mount, Phillip felt his legs to be sloppy, as though they had been taken off and stretched, and put back in not quite the same way as before.

  Soon it began to rain, and the afternoon went dull. Scent having failed, the huntsman blew four slow looping notes. It was the end. Phillip and Jack emptied the port flask, then hacked back to the house. Tea was waiting for them. There was a jolly party around a table, with whiskeys and sodas, as soon as tea was finished, and cigars.

  “What about Fenwick? Aren’t you meeting him somewhere?”

  “Yes, in Sleaford, in the market square, at five.”

  “It’s past that now. I’ll run you there. My ’bus is outside. We’ll say goodbye to our host and hostess, shall we? Good show you put up today, Phil.”

  “All thanks to you, Jack.”

  “A pleasure, my dear fellow. Here we are.”

  They said goodbye, and went out into darkness. The Mercédès stood in the rain, covered by a sort of tarpaulin. How nice to have a servant like that, thought Phillip, to bring your car to you. Jack asked the driver if he had had tea, to be told yes, Mr. Deane had looked after him well. What a fine world it was, when the butler looked after visiting servants, while their master looked after their friends in the house. Everything was done so easily, everything fitting into place. What a bore he had arranged to meet Fenwick, so different from the people with whom he had spent the day. Still, as Jack had said, it was not the thing to disappoint others.

  They were soon into Sleaford. A somewhat dour Fenwick, wearing sodden leather helmet with straps loose and dripping rain, was standing by a horse trough, in the dim light of a lamp-post. The Matchless motorbike and sidecar stood near.

  “Thought you were never comin’,” he remarked, when Captain Hobart had driven away. “I’ve been out five times to look for you. My friends have kept back tea; still, better late than never.”

  “I thought you were going to see your friends, and then we were going to play billiards afterwards.”

  “Aye, thet’s the idea. I’ve got to know two bonnie lassies, if you don’t object to female company?”

  “Not at all, if they play billiards!” said Phillip, facetiously.

  “Aye, thet they do! Reet well! Let’s get out o’ t’ mirk.”

  He led the way to a small pub down a side-street. Harry Lauder Bonnie Lassies somehow didn’t go with knocking on a side-door in a dark alley. What sort of place was it? Very soon he was glad that he had not blurted out his thoughts. The place within was clean and well-kept, the people simple and homely, with two daughters. After tea they made up a four-handed game of billiards. One partnered him, but he was a rabbit, and lost the game to Fenwick, who was an expert, and his partner. He saw with some relief that the girls drank only ginger beer, while he and Fenwick had hot Irish whiskies with lemon and sugar, and glass rods to stir the steaming concoction.

  After some rather thumpy music at a piano in another room, they had supper of gammon and spinach, followed by apple pudding and cream. Long before this Phillip had taken a liking to Fenwick, who was not, as at first he had imagined, a rough character, but a simple, honest-to-God decent bloke. Darky seemed to be quite keen on the elder girl, whom he had met a month before through asking a Sleaford policeman where he could get a quiet game of billiards. He explained that he wanted to keep in form, for his Oddfellows Lodge championship after the war, but didn’t want any posh hotel, only a nice quiet place, homely like. The policeman had recommended the local Oddfellows Lodge, headquarters at the Silk Inn, “and here I am”, said Fenwick, with quiet triumph, as he looked at the plump red shining face beside him. “Eh, lass?” She glowed with pleasure, so did the face of her father, coming in from the bar with two more steaming Irish whiskies.

  On the way home, driving into the darkness of the flat and lonely countryside, Fenwick said, “What did you think of my lass?”

  “Jolly nice, mein prächtig kerl!”

  “Aiy, ah’m reet glad to hear you think she’s bonny.”

  The two-cylinder engine clattered past trees spectral beside the beam of the acetylene lamp. After some minutes he said, “You won’t tell any of the lads aught about the Silk, will you? I mean, I don’t want anyone else to come sniffin’ around the Silk Inn!”

  Phillip thought that few would be likely to do that, for not only had his girl a plain face, but was rather fat as well. Then, lest Fenwick interpret his silence, he exclaimed heartily, “You certainly do not, Darky old boy! By Jove, I’ve enjoyed my day! Only Sunday now to get through, and we’ll be posted to All Weather Jack’s company! A month’s training, and then we’ll be overseas!”

  “Aye, thet’s about it. Tell you what, Phil, when I came here I didn’t care how long the war lasted. I’ve got no home to go to, I never knew father or mother, I were reared in Foundlings’ Home. Bu
t now ’tis different, I’m thinkin’.”

  He blew two hoarse honks on the horn, because his bonny lass had kissed him good-night in the darkness. Phillip checked a slight impulse to sneer: sitting suddenly loose, he thought, why did I want to sneer? It was dreadful of him. His sister Mavis had sneered at Lily, in the same way. Was he unable to change his old self, after all? Fenwick had trusted him with his sacred thoughts. No father or mother, no known relations; now he had found his home. Home! Mother’s face, so gentle and patient, giving all for her children; and he had not gone home on leave to see her, through utter selfishness. With eyes closed, he breathed deeply, releasing slowly his breath, so that he could feel dissolved and floating, nothing of himself coming into his being.

  *

  “My God,” said Teddy Pinnegar, a few mornings later, “what d’you think of this, Phil. The Skipper’s got jaundice! He’s been sent to hospital, and they’re sending another C.O. from the Training Centre to take over!”

  Chapter 4

  LIFE WITH THE DONKS

  Hundreds of mules were walking in all directions over Belton Camp, drawing grey limbers fixed to long poles. These limbers, painted grey, rolled on artillery wheels, together with water carts, G.S. waggons, and cooks’ carts. At night the vehicles were drawn up in long lines upon what was left of the grass of his Lordship’s park. Companies were now going out in greater numbers. Nightly the theatre was packed with enthusiastic subalterns; so was the bar of the Angel. You had to go early to get an evening seat at the Electric Palace. Phillip forgot himself in the hilarity of a Charlie Chaplin film; but his shadowed self arose through the popular tragic actor Sessue Hayakawa—the favourite film hero of Desmond, he remembered—a Japanese actor appearing in frock coat, Indian turban, and the grief-frozen face of a hero without hope. He also saw The Somme, not a cinema story of any particular man or men, but of sights behind the actual fighting, guns, waggons, “plum pudding” mortar bombs on long iron rods, ambulance convoys and distant shell-bursts—sights drawing him back again to the night-world of flares, gun-flashes, and coloured rockets, far from the home he had left, in spirit at least, for ever. In that home, he thought, he had always come between Father and Mother; perhaps his death would bring them together.

  *

  There were a couple of days of cushy life, sitting around the stove in the new company headquarter hut. So far the company officers were Darky Fenwick, Montfort, Teddy Pinnegar, a subaltern who was a farmer in Lincolnshire before the war, and himself. At the other end of the hut sat the company sergeant major and quartermaster sergeant, at a trestle table covered with a brown army blanket. This cosy respite ended when the new C.O. arrived. Phillip got a shock when he saw Downham sitting at Jack Hobart’s table. The same afternoon sixty gunners were marched in from the Training Centre; and next day, nearly two score drivers followed, led by a sergeant. Phillip felt that the army was indeed different from the old days when he realised that this young man, short, fresh-faced, and plump, with a snub nose was to be his right-hand man in France. For very soon he was explaining to Phillip that he had been “offered a commission”, but hadn’t taken it, as he had been “compelled for domestic reasons” to remain home-service.

  “I’ve got a widowed mother, you see,” he added, dropping the “sir” at which Phillip became scrupulously polite.

  “Did you have to do with horses before the war, sergeant?”

  “Only indirectly, in a manner of speaking.”

  Maintaining his attitude of aloof ease, Phillip waited for the young man to continue making the impression he hoped he was making.

  “I was, owing to my father’s death, following financial losses, compelled to forego education at Oxford, and to take a position with a firm of old-established country auctioneers, where I gained some experience of both riding and draught horses, waggons, harness, and fodder.”

  “Where was that, sergeant?”

  “I followed my profession in the county of Surrey. On the outbreak of war, I joined up with the Sharpshooters. That’s how I came across Major Downham, he was my company commander. We came up to the Training Centre together, in a manner of speaking.”

  This news Phillip received with further disquiet. He was already depressed by the thought that Downham knew the rumours about Hallo’e’n 1914, at Messines, when he had failed to get up the ammunition during the German attack on the Windmill, and so many of the London Highlanders had been bayoneted. Still, it was unlikely that Downham had discussed that with a sergeant, before he had even met him. He must act up to his part.

  “Let me have a copy of the nominal role of the section as soon as you can, will you, sergeant? What have we so far?”

  Sergeant Rivett had his book ready. “Twenty-two drivers, sir, including one each for cook’s cart and water-cart. One stitcher; one cold shoer; seven grooms for officers’ chargers. Thirty-one all told, thirty-two with myself. I have already made a copy of the nominal role, sir.”

  “Well done. I’m going to the company orderly room now, so come down and check your roll with that of the company sergeant major.”

  Events were certainly moving fast. Just before twilight that afternoon sixteen Vickers guns, with tripods and ammunition boxes, were ranged along one side of the Orderly Room hut. The next morning there was a chit from the Centre: Senior Supervising Officer (Transport) informed O.C. Company that a Mule Convoy would arrive at the station at 8.30 p.m. the following night and arrangements should be made to collect forty mules.

  Phillip said to Major Downham, “We’ll want head-stalls and chains, if we’re going to lead our mules back, sir. With your permission I’ll try and wangle the use of a Driving School limber to collect them in.”

  “Very well. Only report back when you return.”

  The Corporal-storeman at Ordnance was not easily persuaded. He said that an order had come reserving all head-stalls for the Senior Supervising Officer of Transport. But after some talk about the Menin road in 1914, during which the corporal, a regular soldier, took in the well-fitting driver’s coat, boned cavalry-pattern boots and fawn twill buttoned breeches, while warming to the young officer’s easy politeness of manner, he said, “I think I can manage that little lot for you, sir.”

  Forty head-stalls, which had been taken from a heap set aside by the Staff Q.M.S., were exchanged for a chit signed by P.S.T. Maddison, Lieut., for O.C. 286 Coy; and carried back in the “borrowed” limber for Sergeant Rivett to hang up on racks under some covered stables Phillip had occupied in lieu of the open standings allotted him. Then he reported to Downham in his cubicle.

  “I shall have to ask permission to sign out for mess dinner, sir.”

  “All right, only report to me when you get back tonight. And don’t go and do anything stupid, such as tweaking the Senior Supervising Officer’s ears with fire-tongs, as you did to Hollis in the office.” Why did Downham want to drag up the past?

  At 7.30 p.m. the section paraded, and he led them to the town station. The train from Liverpool was two hours late. That meant hanging about until half-past ten. The men were allowed away in two relays, each of half an hour, to the pubs. Closing time was now half-past nine.

  “Now be good fellows, and return promptly to time, won’t you?” A chorus of Yes, sir! made him feel in touch with them.

  Sergeant Rivett was with the first section, and when he returned, Phillip went into the town, hoping to buy bread and cheese for the men. All shops were closed, food was becoming scarce owing to unrestricted submarine warfare. His search produced nothing. He returned after closing time, and stood about with the others, feeling dull and cold as time went on, having missed mess dinner in his determination to see that everything was done properly.

  At last rosy steam of an approaching train. Soon orders and counter-orders arose amidst hooves clattering on asphalt and sett-stone, and an occasional angry squeal and walloping of heels on wood. The mules came out, bunching, pushing, their eyes bloodshot and staring, their coats clotted. The spirit of fear ruled und
er arc-lamps making livid the damp night scene. “They’re sods, these South American mules,” said the heavy officer who had organised the mass bribery of the sergeant. “Most of ’em are only half-broken. They won’t get away with it with me!”

  “What will you do?”

  “Put a nose twitch on any that shows resistance, and put on a pack-saddle loaded with old iron. Break its spirit.”

  “I don’t agree with that. I believe that mules, like horses or any other animals, respond to care and kindness. Just think what these poor old donks have suffered since leaving their native pampas—sea-sickness, blows, curses, and at best indifference.” Clewlee replied with one explodent word, and walked away.

  Forty beasts were allotted to the company. With a start he saw that they already wore head-stalls. His drivers had extra difficulty, holding their charges, while trying to strap the spare head-stalls over their own shoulders. This delayed departure, and caused criticism from the S.S.O.

  “So you’re the culprit who took away my equipment from my stores, are you? And caused me to be short by the very number by which you now try and turn your men into jackasses? Who the devil d’you think you are?”